5
gentlemen – they speak English?
BARDOLPH Ay, sir. I’ll call him to you.
HOST They shall have my horses, but I’ll make them
pay, I’ll sauce them. They have had my house a week
at command. I have turned away my other guests: they
10
must come off, I’ll sauce them. Come. Exeunt.
4.4 Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE,
MISTRESS FORD and EVANS.
EVANS ’Tis one of the best discretions of a ‘oman as ever
I did look upon.
PAGE And did he send you both these letters at an
instant?
MISTRESS PAGE Within a quarter of an hour.
5
FORD Pardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt:
I rather will suspect the sun with cold
Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,
In him that was of late an heretic,
As firm as faith.
PAGE ’Tis well, ’tis well, no more.
10
Be not as extreme in submission as in offence.
But let our plot go forward. Let our wives
Yet once again, to make us public sport,
Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
15
FORD There is no better way than that they spoke of.
PAGE How? To send him word they’ll meet him in the
park at midnight? Fie, fie, he’ll never come.
EVANS You say he has been thrown in the rivers, and has
been grievously peaten, as an old ‘oman. Methinks
20
there should be terrors in him, that he should not
come. Methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no
desires.
PAGE So think I too.
MISTRESS FORD
Devise but how you’ll use him when he comes
25
And let us two devise to bring him thither.
MISTRESS PAGE
There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth, all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns,
30
And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
35
Received and did deliver to our age
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.
PAGE
Why, yet there want not many that do fear
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.
But what of this?
MISTRESS FORD Marry, this is our device:
40
That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
Disguised like Herne, with huge horns on his head.
PAGE Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,
And in this shape; when you have brought him thither,
What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
45
MISTRESS PAGE
That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:
Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
And three or four more of their growth, we’ll dress
Like urchins, oafs and fairies, green and white,
With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads
50
And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,
As Falstaff, she and I are newly met,
Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
With some diffused song; upon their sight
We two in great amazedness will fly;
55
Then let them all encircle him about,
And fairy-like to pinch the unclean knight,
And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
In shape profane.
MISTRESS FORD And till he tell the truth
60
Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound
And burn him with their tapers.
MISTRESS PAGE The truth being known,
We’ll all present ourselves, dishorn the spirit,
And mock him home to Windsor.
FORD The children must
Be practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do’t.
65
EVANS I will teach the children their behaviours, and I
will be like a jackanapes also, to burn the knight with
my taber.
FORD That will be excellent, I’ll go buy them vizards.
MISTRESS PAGE
My Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,
70
Finely attired in a robe of white.
PAGE
That silk will I go buy – [aside] and in that time
Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,
And marry her at Eton. – Go, send to Falstaff straight.
FORD Nay, I’ll to him again in name of Brook:
75
He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he’ll come.
MISTRESS PAGE Fear not you that. Go get us properties
And tricking for our fairies.
EVANS Let us about it. – It is admirable pleasures and
ferry honest knaveries. Exeunt Page, Ford and Evans.
80
MISTRESS PAGE Go, Mistress Ford,
Send quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
Exit Mistress Ford.
I’ll to the Doctor: he hath my good will,
And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot –
85
And he my husband best of all affects.
The Doctor is well moneyed, and his friends
Potent at court: he, none but he, shall have her,
Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.
Exit.
4.5 Enter HOST and SIMPLE.
HOST What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?
Speak, breathe, discuss – brief, short, quick, snap.
SIMPLE Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John
Falstaff from Master Slender.
HOST There’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his
5
standing-bed, and truckle-bed: ’tis painted about with
the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock
and call: he’ll speak like an anthropophaginian unto
thee. Knock, I say.
SIMPLE There’s an old woman, a fat woman, gone up
10
into his chamber. I’ll be so bold as stay, sir, till she
come down. I come to speak with her indeed.
HOST Ha? A fat woman? The knight may be robbed, I’ll
call. – Bully knight, bully Sir John! Speak from thy
lungs military: art thou there? It is thine host, thine
15
Ephesian, calls.
FALSTAFF [above] How now, mine host?
HOST Here’s a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming
down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her
descend. My chambers are honourable. Fie! Privacy?
20
Fie!
Enter FALSTAFF.
FALSTAFF There was, mine host, an old fat woman even
now with me, but she’s gone.
SIMPLE Pray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman of
Brentford?
25
FALSTAFF Ay, marry, was it, mussel-shell. What would
you with her?
SIMPLE My master, sir, my master, Master Slender, sent
to her, seeing her go
thorough the streets, to know, sir,
whether one Nim, sir, that beguiled him of a chain,
30
had the chain, or no.
FALSTAFF I spake with the old woman about it.
SIMPLE And what says she, I pray, sir?
FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that
beguiled Master Slender of his chain – cozened him of
35
it.
SIMPLE I would I could have spoken with the woman
herself. I had other things to have spoken with her too,
from him.
FALSTAFF What are they? Let us know.
40
HOST Ay, come. Quick!
SIMPLE I may not conceal them, sir.
HOST Conceal them, or thou diest.
SIMPLE Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress
Anne Page, to know if it were my master’s fortune to
45
have her, or no.
FALSTAFF ’Tis, ’tis his fortune.
SIMPLE What, sir?
FALSTAFF To have her, or no. Go, say the woman told
me so.
50
SIMPLE May I be bold to say so, sir?
FALSTAFF Ay, sir Tike; who more bold?
SIMPLE I thank your worship; I shall make my master
glad with these tidings. Exit.
HOST Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
55
there a wise woman with thee?
FALSTAFF Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath
taught me more wit than ever I learnt before in my
life; and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for
my learning.
60
Enter BARDOLPH.
BARDOLPH Out alas, sir: cozenage, mere cozenage!
HOST Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
BARDOLPH Run away with the cozeners: for so soon as I
came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one
of them, in a slough of mire, and set spurs and away, like
65
three German devils, three Doctor Faustasses.
HOST They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain, do
not say they be fled. Germans are honest men.
Enter EVANS.
EVANS Where is mine host?
HOST What is the matter, sir?
70
EVANS Have a care of your entertainments. There is a
friend of mine come to town tells me there is three sorts
of Cozen-Garmombles, that has cozened all the hosts of
Readings, of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and
money. I tell you for good will, look you: you are wise,
75
and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks, and ’tis not
convenient you should be cozened. Fare you well.
Exit.
Enter CAIUS.
CAIUS Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
HOST Here, master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful
dilemma.
80
CAIUS I cannot tell vat is dat, but, by gar, it is tell-a me
dat you make grand preparation for a Duke de
Jarmany. By my trot, der is no Duke that the court is
know to come. By gar, I tell you for good will. Adieu.
Exit.
HOST Hue and cry, villain, go! – Assist me, knight, I am
85
undone! – Fly, run, hue and cry, villain, I am undone!
Exit with Bardolph.
FALSTAFF I would all the world might be cozened, for I
have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to
the ear of the court how I have been transformed, and
how my transformation hath been washed and
90
cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by
drop, and liquor fishermen’s boots with me. I warrant
they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as
crestfallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I
forswore myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but
95
long enough, I would repent.
Enter Mistress QUICKLY.
Now, whence come you?
QUICKLY From the two parties, forsooth.
FALSTAFF The devil take one party and his dam the
other, and so they shall be both bestowed. I have
100
suffered more for their sakes, more than the villainous
inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.
QUICKLY And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant,
speciously one of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is
beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot
105
about her.
FALSTAFF What tellst thou me of black and blue?
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 386